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I really like shooting with the big Mamiya 7ii. I like the big negatives, I like the 6×7 format: not too long like 35mm, and not too much like hard work like the 5×4. I like the shallow depth of field and smooth fall off you get with medium format, and I like the fact that you have to be fairly conservative with your film, 10 frames per roll. The mamiya lenses are razor sharp and you can generally tell […]

I found a load of negatives from the 80’s recently as we were tidying up. I always knew I still had them somewhere as I could vaguely remember pictures around that time, but not all of them. It’s interesting though looking at stuff that’s nearly 30 years old. In fact it’s a bit mad. The same themes come though more or less; friends (not all here anymore, sadly); 2 dimensional landscapes; pictures from moving cars, general stuff. Most things from now were there then, bar seagulls […]

Following on from my last post, I sometimes use a collection of images from other photographers as a way of explaining a mood or a feel that I’m after. I haven’t managed the social media step to Pinterest, so a crumpled sheet of printed A4 paper tends to be the means. Invariably they include the likes of Lillian Bassman and Ellen Von Unswerth, and to a much lesser extent, male photographers. I tend to think we’re most often focussed on […]

Another daylight session from back in February. In photography I’m generally not one for complicating things with too many variables. The subject, a simple location (a room with somewhere to stand, sit or lie), two cameras (one with a 50mm on the front, the other with something different), Tri-X in both and a handheld meter. And daylight. Doesn’t even really need to be much of that around. I suppose I could reduce it further and have only one camera, and then […]

Hotel Del Almagro, Santiago, Chile. August 2015. Southbound. Travelling for work is very different to travelling for fun. It generally feels like it’s done to you, rather than you being part of it. And when you get to your destination things look pretty much the same as where you departed from: beds are beds, chairs are chairs, sofas are sofas (comfortable, lumpy, too small, too big). Food is reasonably similar, variations of meat, fish and vegetables. Light fittings are well, […]

Oddly, posting on the 29th February seems right after looking at the date of my last post (December 31st). I’ll try harder to post more regularly. I spent a few hours in the company of Mia Liberum recently, a model who combines art nude with anonymity. I quite like the anonymity, it’s a way of both de- eroticising nude photography and eroticising it. Without the eye contact you (as a viewer) don’t get the full story, but can fill in […]

As the title says, Happy New Year! Apologies for the lack of posting it’s been fairly hectic since Berlin what with going overseas again. Berlin was good fun: flashbacks on the walking tour after eating too much currywurst and drinking berliner beer, but what a city, definitely going back. I’ll be overseas again off and on throughout 2017, but will post pictures as they come through. I’ll be in the Falklands in the South Atlantic, so should be interesting subject […]

Some recent work, sorry been very busy! Using the holga again this time with Kodak Portra (but developed in rodinal 1:100, hence the black and white). I tried it with out of date XP2 and it seemed to work OK, so when it came to developing all the films, I just put the portra in the B&W pile on autopilot. I have to pinch myself sometimes when I see the results of the hola though. Idiot focussing and no controls, […]

Les Invalides. The Ronin museum. The Louvre. The D’Orsay. Eighteen miles of walking at least. Back up the Champ Elysses again and again, through the Christmas crowds and Santa Claus on a high wire. The locks on bridges: I don’t quite understand the penchant for combination locks; it seems like a bit of a cop out. Couldn’t you come back and remove it if it all went sour? It’s not as if you’ve thrown the combination in the Seine? I […]

After Bruges, Paris. We must have walked close to 20 miles down the left bank and up the right bank in the two days we were there. Sunday morning we came across this bench close to the Eiffel tower. I can’t be totally sure, but it looks pretty much like the same bench where 25 years ago a friend and myself spent the night chatting and drinking cheap red wine with a fellow hobo, whilst failing heroically to hitch […]